Saga of The Swamp Thing...

Thanks to Hendo, I recently filled in a bunch of the holes in my graphic novel collection. Specifically, I've completed my runs of James Robinson's "Starman" and the entire run of Alan Moore's "Swamp Thing". (He also hooked me up with the entire run of "The Invisibles" and "Transmetropolitan" and some other cool books.)

Currently, I'm working my way through Alan Moore's incredible run of "Saga Of The Swamp Thing." Apparently, it was just another crappy little book, on the verge of cancellation when DC allowed Moore, then a relatively unknown comics author, permission to run with "Swamp Thing".

The first thing that he did was kill the character off.

Which was genius.

The hook of the book was that his guy, Alec Holland, was in his swamp laboratory, when he was attacked by bad guys. The lab exploded. Holland burned alive and at the last second, fell into the swamp with Unknown Chemicals. And was reborn as the Swamp Thing. Alec Hollands mind in a very strong body made of tree limbs, moss, etc. Of course, the first thing he did was wreak revenge on his attackers. And then he spent the almost every issue, since then, looking for a cure for his condition.

Moore felt that this limited the character. To have one's singular existence revolve around a central question - "Will Alec Holland ever become human again?" - limited his focus as character and writer. So, Moore killed Holland almost immediately and spent his first issue conducting an autopsy on the Swamp Thing's body. Where it was discovered that everything internal was also vegetable matter, mimicking human function. Alec Holland died in the accident, but his "soul", if you will, was inherited by the swamp muck and went about, thinking it was Alec Holland. Of course, the Swamp Thing regains consciousness and eventually finds out what he isn't - anything human - and what he is - alive, nonetheless and begins an existential journey that lasted several years in the book.

Once the character died for once and for all, the book finally kicked into high gear.

And of course, it's brilliant. Alan Moore's Swamp Thing fell in love, had sex, got married, saved the world, learned about how things really work. In the issue that I'm currently reading, his wife, Abby Chase, has been photographed having sex with him in the swamp and is labeled a sex offender. She skips bail, heads to Gotham City and the Swamp Thing heads there, looking for her, by surfing the web of all living things, between Louisiana and Gotham. When he gets to Gotham, the Swamp Thing basically flips out and activates every living plant in Gotham to swallow up the city into an island of Eden, weaving through the building canyons of the city. On the page before I stopped reading, Batman stands on a gargoyle looking down and the newly re-forested Gotham, grimly assessing the situation.

I'm just about to read his story "My Blue Heaven", where a lost Swamp Thing, surfs through the universe and ends up on an unpopulated blue planet, where he uses his plant powers to create simulacrums of everyone he knows, to keep himself company. Of course, they're not the real people and he realizes that they only know what he tells them and say what he knows and he's forced to admit, again, that he's entirely alone. It's called by some, a heartbreaking exploration of loneliness and depression.

And here's where I find myself marveling at how good this book is, some 22 years after it was originally written. I want to walk up to people and say, "Hey man, how cool is THIS shit, huh? That bit where the Swamp Thing erupts out of a single rose in the courtroom, covered in roses and thorns, that was pretty bitchin', wasn't it?"

But there's no one to say it to, since the odds are unlikely that anyone around me is reading the book too. Or has ever read the book. Since comics are a relatively unpopular art medium. And within it, there are so many different titles and stories, that two comics fans can meet and talk and find out that neither of them has read the same stories.

So, that's it. I'm reading a really incredible, terribly smart book, which is subtly altering my perceptions of what's possible in a told story and I really don't have anyone to share it with. So I post about it here...

Cheers,
Mr.B